»JK Rowling is a Pop-Culture Hitler! Discuss!«

Yes it must be grand to look from the outside at my country in the grips of a foreign aristocracy and say, yes, this is a great thing.

Ugh Rowling's not interested in squishing America or ruling it from her comfortable home in wherever.

As if by virtue of being a Briton she is automatically targeting only this particular nation in true Briton fashion..

To me it looks like she wants power - raw power.

Oops am I wrong in thinking JK Rowling is a Christian?

However I have a bachelor's degree in literature so I do know at least to some degree whereof I speak, and let me tell you, that was the worst book I have ever read, not just because my expectations were high; they weren't.

To me what it represents is the triumph of a kind of "concept culture", where the superficial premise of the narrative is taken at face value and the reality of the execution is not really considered.

With only small exagerration, someone like Rowling could publish her grocery list and people would buy it and praise it.

Well consider that in the mass culture "government", once a person reaches a certain level of status and power, there is no accountability.

Except when the Christian author is not a real Christian which is a fact decided long after they are dead by people like stinkz...any questions?

So first, you're basing your entire argument on a subjective opinion. You think the book was horrible. And does this mean, then, that any person who reads a book and hates it should attempt to apply your thesis to that author as well?

How is this different from a summer blockbuster movie? »Independence Day«, for example, fits that description perfectly. You call it "concept culture." I call it "brain candy." Arguably, too much "brain candy" makes your brain lazy, which is why people should expose themselves to "quality culture" too.

How is this different from George Lucas making 3 new Star Wars movies of questionable quality? How is this different from Matrix fans all going to see the third Matrix movie? Or from some of the crap that Anne Rice or Stephen King started publishing after they got famous? Or are you calling all of these people "pop-culture Hitlers"?

Assuming that you agree that your argument applies to any popular brand of entertainment, what your premise boils down to is that anyone who produces entertainment should be held "accountable" for it. So what would this "accountability" entail?

You have singularly failed to prove that Rowling is anything like Hitler metaphorically. Hitler committed genocide. He killed millions of people. That is what he is known for. How is a "pop culture Hitler" analagous to this?

Well I don't think anybody has taken the "copyright baron" trip as far as Rowling has. In fact no one has come close.

I think the difference lies in the fact that Harry Potter books are novels written by a single person

No they are not Hitlers; they are more like little cult leaders.

Plus the Star Wars cult is relatively new...I don't remember there being that much insanity about the whole thing until »Phantom Menace «came out.

I would class her with Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe as one of the three most insanely ruthless women of the 20th century.

You should know a few things about Hitler:
1) He never killed anyone personally (except possibly as a soldier in WWI).
2) People hung on his every word and either idolized or villified his ideas.
3) He wrote a bestseller.
Rowling is similar to Hitler in all three of these salient ways.

Anne Rice and Stephen King most certainly have.

So you're saying that you have less respect for best-selling authors (talented or not) than for the myriad people who make a crappy big-budget movie because it takes more people to make the movie.

I'm sorry, but I can't relate to that mentality. I have a lot more respect for Mark Twain, or Edgar Allen Poe, or Isaac Asimov, than for the makers of »Spice World«.

So now you throw out another completely unsupported metaphor. So how are best-selling authors metaphorically similar to people who instruct their followers to commit suicide?

So wrong. Completely wrong. The original Star Wars trilogy had an enormous following of cult-like devotion. Don't believe me? Check out the numbers on IMDB:


The original Star Wars movie made $30million more than Phantom Menace, even though it came out 20 years earlier.

It sounds to me like you have issues with women.

If those are what you consider to be the salient ways in which Hitler was (in)famous, then your education is seriously lacking or you're a neo-Nazi.

Well I don't think anybody has taken the "copyright baron" trip as far as Rowling has. In fact no one has come close. But don't get me wrong, I think all the copyright empires should be brought down. Writing a book should be like putting up a web page, a means to an end.

I think the difference lies in the fact that Harry Potter books are novels written by a single person, then published and instantly - instantly - revered by millions around the world with no thought as to their quality.

Harry Potter novels are just not impressive.

No they are not Hitlers; they are more like little cult leaders.

I would class her with Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe as one of the three most insanely ruthless women of the 20th century.

No one has commanded the level of power in the entertainment industry in such a short time,

I am not that impressed by novelists. To me they are most often just a bunch of crapmongers who are unable or unwilling to write beautiful language.

So because a lot of people went to see »Star Wars« that means that it had a cult comparable to Harry Potter's?

Silly me, and I thought this was a cultural debate...seems it has become personal for you!

I could hurt from laughing. The two are probably the 2 most emotionally influencing women of the 20th.. or the 2 most dramatic.. with the same issues of personal lives being publicised.. but I find the Rowling comparison laughable. She isn't experiencing any personal trouble due to her fame, and she isn't using any personal antics from her own life to spice up HP sales - even in your Grocery example, she does not choose to release that list.

But I don't think that Marilyn and Diana's use of their personal lives to enhance their fame is what made them insanely ruthless...it's the fact that they became arguably the two most famous 20th century women without ever doing anything worthwhile or deserving of notice.

What are you a therapist? You have no idea who I am or what I have issues with! But I have heard this argument before. Anytime anyone insults one of the media's bottle-blonde idols, they automatically become some kind of woman-hater.

Marilyn fucked President Kennedy and Diana fucked Prince Charles

Rowling in fact has taken the whole thing to a new level by becoming not only extremely popular without doing anything deserving of that popularity, but also becoming a one of the richest people in the world. But unlike many rich people, she hasn't earned any of her money

Also there is the matter of commercialization that Ryder brought up...no literary premise has ever been so crudely exploited for profit as Harry Potter has...

Once again I'm not talking about net sales, I'm talking about the way the premise is marketed, and the personal cult of the writer. I think this may be the silliest thing you have written yet Tiefling! So because a lot of people went to see »Star Wars« that means that it had a cult comparable to Harry Potter's?

So now I'm either uneducated or a Neo-Nazi because I don't agree with you.

It says, "Rowling is similar to Hitler in all three of these salient ways," not "Hitler is infamous in all three of these salient ways."
Big difference, you know.

However I have a bachelor's degree in literature

I think the difference lies in the fact that Harry Potter books are novels written by a single person, then published and instantly - instantly - revered by millions around the world with no thought as to their quality.

I am not that impressed by novelists. To me they are most often just a bunch of crapmongers who are unable or unwilling to write beautiful language.

the only copyrights I think should be honored are those for actual functional implements to life, not for literature

If you had said "Dante and Shakespeare" you might have had a point. Those are the only two really hugely famous creative authors who I think are worth a damn.

However I have a bachelor's degree in literature so I do know at least to some degree whereof I speak, and let me tell you, that was the worst book I have ever read

So your definition of a ruthless person is, "Someone who becomes famous without ever doing anything worthwhile or deserving of notice." I'm not sure how you expect me to take anything in this post seriously if you don't even know what the word "ruthless" means.

And here you are again, making another chauvinist statement. Rather than bring up Monroe's career as an actress or Diana's humanitarian efforts, you bring up their sex lives.

So you are undeserving of popularity if you write a series of novels. Are you deserving of popularity if you're an actor? A singer? A songwriter? How exactly does someone become "deserving" of popularity?

So it's not ok to commercialize a series of movies based off a series of books (Harry Potter), but it is ok to commercialize a series of moves based off of nothing (Star Wars)? Or are you saying it's not ok to commercialize anything?

No, you still take the cake there. You're either being ridiculous or you lived in a cave in the 80s if you think there wasn't a cult-like mentality toward Star Wars 20 years before Phantom Menace. And you're either being ridiculous or stupid if you think Star Wars isn't still grossly more popular than Harry Potter. The numbers on IMDB support my statement. What supports yours?

No. You're either uneducated or a neo-Nazi if you feel the salient points of Hitler's infamy does not include his campaign of genocide against the Jews.

For having a degree in literature, your grasp of the English language sure is lacking! You said that Rowling and Hitler were similar in those "salient ways." Salient means "strikingly conspicuous." Hitler is not "strikingly conspicuous" for having not personally killed anyone. Nor do people remember him for having written a book. What people remember him for is the deaths of 6 million Jews in concentration camps. Either you don't know about this genocide or you refuse to acknowledge it. This makes you either uneducated or a neo-Nazi.

Here, my turn. h_o_h is similiar to Hitler in these "salient" ways:
(1) Both are humans.
(2) Both are males.
(3) Both are opinionated.
(4) Both are full of themselves.

So there we go. Looks like this makes you a forum Hitler.

h_o_h, I'm starting to doubt your credentials... Here's a montage of why:



Clearly, you are biased against novelists. Therefore, your bachelor's degree in literature means zilch to this discussion. Therefore, your statement:
is also of questionable worth. You're claiming that your degree makes you an expert, to some degree, on novels, and that therefore you are speaking somewhat objectively when you say it was the worst book you have ever read. However, your bias against novelists makes your opinion here worthless.

With that out of the discussion, you've said nothing substantive in this post whatsoever. All you've done is insult women and novelists and claimed that big-budget movies like Spice World are more worthy of praise than novels by Mark Twain.